


Seeker's Rage

by captainraz



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Established Relationship, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Not sure where in the relationship this is, Somewhat Fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 05:17:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5572405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainraz/pseuds/captainraz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It occurred to the Inquisitor that she had never seen Cassandra Pentaghast truly angry. On a seemingly routine mission she discovers what it takes for the Seeker to truly lose her temper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeker's Rage

It occurred to the Inquisitor that she had never seen Cassandra Pentaghast truly angry.

The Seeker had a temper, that could not be denied, and on occasion it was set off by the smallest irritation. Usually Varric. But no matter how heated the outburst, no matter the damage to training dummies, walls or trees, there was always a tight thread of control to Cassandra's actions.

The Inquisitor wondered what it would take to see the Seeker truly lose her temper.

She found out during a mission to the Storm Coast. A new Fade rift had opened up, or the scouts had found one they'd previously missed, and Trevelyan was dispatched with a team to close it. A simple mission, easily dealt with.

Or so they thought.

The rift was on it's last legs when it spat out a pair of rage demons right on top of the Inquisitor. They quickly outflanked her. Help was too far away; Dorian and Sera were concentrating their attacks on several demons approaching them menacingly and Cassandra was battling a terror demon on the other side of the rift.

The Inquisitor was on her own.

She drew her blades and readied her defences, knowing there was little she could do when she was so badly outmatched but knowing she had to try. Trevelyan parried the first blow with ease but then she felt lines of blistering heat rake across her back. She gasped out loud but the cry of pain was cut short, strangled by a second blow across her arm. White hot pain burned up to her shoulder and her dagger fell from her now useless hand.

As she fell to her knees in the mud she dimly heard a shout. Was that Dorian? She couldn't tell. The rage demon its front of her raised its hand for another blow and she knew; this was it. This was how the Herald of Andraste returned to the Maker.

Through the dark fog clouding the edge of her mind the Inquisitor heard an inhuman bellow. She still had enough wits to be terrified by it and even the demons paused to seek it's origin.

White-faced with rage Cassandra dispatched the terror demon she'd been battling and charged across the battlefield to where the Inquisitor knelt helplessly. The first rage demon fell to the warrior's first momentous attack, disappearing in a puff of green mist as it returned to the Fade.

The second of the demons turned to face this new threat, ignoring the wounded Inquisitor. Another roar split the air as Cassandra leapt at the demon, shield first. It fell back under the onslaught, unable to withstand the sheer unadulterated power of the Seeker's assault. Trevelyan was no warrior but she could see there was no finesse to Cassandra's attack. She was acting on emotion alone, and she was winning.

Her sword flashed in the sunlight as she hacked at the demon, that awful scream still in her throat. The demon rallied, surging forwards to counter-attack the warrior but its deadly claws only succeeded in scrabbling against her shield. Cassandra pushed back, forcing the demon away from the Inquisitor. She hacked again and again and at last the demon fell.

Trevelyan's palm itched and through the haze of pain she realised the rift was ready to be sealed. She held her hand up to the sky and pushed with the last of her energy. The rift sealed at last, she promptly collapsed sideways into the dirt.

Cassandra was at her side in an instant, jaw clenched, face white and her nostrils flaring in anger. Her lips were moving but the Inquisitor couldn't hear the words. Her vision swam in and out of focus and seemed to bleed into blackness at the edges. Her body felt like it was on fire. Cassandra knelt next to her, uncorking a potion bottle. Trevelyan couldn't control her lips properly and most of the potion went down her front, but the pain eased slightly so some must have gotten into her system.

The Seeker grabbed hold of the Inquisitor's uninjured arm and dragged her onto her feet. She heard a scream from somewhere and realise it was her own voice crying out in agony. Cassandra slung Trevelyan onto her back as though she weighed no more than a shield and took off towards the nearest camp. Every step the Seeker took jolted the Inquisitor and the pain became unbearable.

She passed out.

For a long time after that the Inquisitor drifted in and out of consciousness, leaving only impressions in her memory. Dorian's concerned face; the roof of her tent; Cassandra shouting at Sera, her face almost as livid as when she'd attacked the demons. Above all else there was the burning pain, overwhelming all other memories. Would it never stop?

There was the burning and then there was darkness.

When the Inquisitor came to properly the first time it was to the sound of shouting and a sword hitting something solid. Sluggish instincts forced her to rise but she was stopped by the pain in her everything. Then there was a gentle hand on her chest and Dorian's familiar face. He pressed a potion to her lips, followed by a water skin and everything felt much better.

Dorian read to her a while, though she still couldn't make out the words. She listened to the cadence of his voice, letting it soothe and relax her. This time it was sleep that claimed her.

Trevelyan awoke to the sound of birdsong and rain on canvas. Right. Storm Coast. Fade rift. Memories filtered back into her mind slowly, as though her head was full of honey. She tried to sit up but her back and arm screamed in protest. It took all her self-control to keep her yell down to an anguished moan.

The tent flaps opened and in strode Cassandra looking like she hadn't slept for days. Her jaw was tense, her hair messed up and her eyes were still full of anger. The Seeker’s gaze softened a little as it passed over Trevelyan's prone form. Wordlessly she passed the Inquisitor a water skin and Trevelyan drank greedily.

By the time she was done drinking Cassandra had settled onto a stool next to the cot. The scowl still hadn't left her face, and the Inquisitor could tell that frightening rage was still simmering under the surface.

"How– how long was I out?" Voice rusty from disuse, every word scratched at her throat.

"Four days, Inquisitor," Cassandra said. Tight, formal, angry. "Dorian thought it best to keep you sedated for at least two. You woke briefly yesterday."

"How bad?"

Nostrils flared again and for a moment the Inquisitor thought she might get a lashing from the Seeker’s sharp tongue. "Bad," she said after a while. "We thought– _I_ thought I might lose you."

 _Bad enough that they didn't dare move me back to Skyhold,_ she thought to herself.

Experimentally she tried to flex her fingers. Burning pain lanced up her arm and she hissed.

"Inquisitor!" Cassandra said, alarmed. "You've shouldn't move yet, Dorian said–"

"To the Void with what Dorian said!" the Inquisitor snapped, angered by her own pain and Cassandra's still simmering temper. "Andraste's tits why are you angry at me?"

"Don't blaspheme," said Cassandra, frowning. "And it is not you I am angry at."

"Oh piss," she said, squirming in her cot to get comfortable despite her injuries. "You've been like a bear with a sore head ever since you came in here."

"You almost died!" Cassandra shouted, standing up abruptly and knocking the stool over. Her gauntleted fists were clenched at her sides and shaking. There was rage in her voice but underneath the anger in her face was fear.

The Inquisitor had never seen the Seeker so terrified in all the time they'd known each other. Demons and holes in the sky couldn't coax this reaction from her but the thought of losing the Inquisitor did.

She didn't want to think about the implications of that.

Trevelyan felt her own anger seeping out of her. She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath, surprised at just how much it hurt to breathe. When she opened them again Cassandra had mostly regained her control, though there was still tension in her jaw.

"Cassandra, sit. Please."

The Seeker did as she'd been asked, righting the stool and sitting down with her elbows on her knees. Her eyes hadn't left Trevelyan's face and they still hadn't lost their haunted look.

Neither of them said anything for a long time and the only sound was the rain outside.

"I was so scared," said Cassandra at last in a harsh whisper. "When you screamed and went down... And then I was so angry. I– I couldn't control it." She buried her face in her hands. "Maker forgive me, I've never been so angry in my life."

The Inquisitor reached out with her uninjured arm, ignoring the fresh wave of pain that shot across her back. She brushed her fingers against Cassandra's cheek and was surprised to find it wet.

"Cassandra," she whispered. "Are you crying?"

Cassandra looked up then, her warm brown eyes full of tears and unacknowledged pain. Trevelyan's heart ached for her.

"I thought I had lost you," Cassandra said, her voice unsteady. "When I saw you go down... The fate of all Thedas rests on your shoulders and all I could think about was how _I_ felt." Her shoulders started to shake in earnest as the Seeker began to sob.

Trevelyan's heart broke then and, despite the pain, she leaned over and pulled Cassandra onto the cot with her. Surprisingly the Seeker didn't protest. Instead Cassandra wrapped her arms carefully around the Inquisitor and buried her head in her shoulder. Trevelyan said nothing; she just held the Seeker and stroked her short dark hair.

Eventually the sobs came to a halt but Cassandra didn't seem in any hurry to extricate herself from the cot and Trevelyan wasn't in any hurry to see her go.

"You took down a rage demon with one blow." The Inquisitor mentioned it casually, but couldn't quite keep the admiration out of her voice.

"I would take down a hundred more of them if it would keep you safe." Cassandra's voice was quiet and muffled by Trevelyan's shoulder, but it was strong and sure nonetheless.

They lay there a long time listening to the rain and the sounds of camp and each other's breathing. Trevelyan thought Cassandra might have fallen asleep until she shifted slightly to look at the Inquisitor's face. Her eyes were red from crying, her dark make-up smudged, but the anger and the fear had gone.

"Was I imagining things or were you attacking training dummies when I came to yesterday?"

Cassandra's cheeks flushed dark red; the Inquisitor thought it fetching. "It was a tree trunk we were meant to be using for firewood. I couldn't– I still felt angry. Meditation and prayer didn't help."

"But hitting things did?"

"Yes. It usually does when all else fails." She shifted again and raised a hand to stroke Trevelyan's cheek. "I know that what happened wasn't your fault and that there is no way to prevent it happening again. I cannot make you promise to keep yourself safe, no matter how much that would ease the ache in my heart, but I need you to know that the prospect of losing you frightens me. More than I have words for."

"The idea of losing you frightens me too," Trevelyan replied in a whisper.

Cassandra tucked her head back into the crook of the Inquisitor's neck and this time she did fall asleep. Trevelyan's wounds ached but the sight of the Seeker sleeping peacefully in her arms was too precious to pass up; her own comfort could wait.

When Dorian came in to check in on her, Trevelyan was quietly singing to a gently snoring Seeker. She smiled at him to let him know she was alright and he returned it with a grin of his own before leaving them in peace.

The Inquisitor pressed a gentle kiss to Cassandra's temple and settled down to sleep herself. There was still a lot of healing that both of them needed to do, but they'd get there.

Together.


End file.
